Commentary on Australian and world events from a socialist and democratic viewpoint

For his own self-respect, Turnbull should quit

As I mentioned in my last post, Turnbull’s narrow win has left us with a government standing for nothing but delaying various inevitable outcomes, including
* equal marriage;
* participation in global action on climate change; and, most notably
* Turnbull’s removal from office, whether by voters or, more likely, by his own colleagues.

The “economic plan” on which the government was supposedly elected consists of a single element, a cut in company taxes mostly deferred far enough beyond the forward estimates to dodge the question of how it will be paid for. In any case, it’s dead in the water, as, in all likelihood is the pretext for the double dissolution, the ABCC bill.

Turnbull’s lame duck status was made farcically clear by Cabinet’s non-decision on Kevin Rudd’s proposed nomination as UN Secretary General. The Right-dominated party didn’t even bother to overrule Julie Bishop (and, pretty obviously, Turnbull’s own inclination). Instead, they told Turnbull to make a “captain’s call”, while making it clear that the wrong call would be fatal.

If Turnbull had any self-respect left, he’d resign and let this crew sort out their own mess. Instead, he gets to hang on in office, at the price of being made a fool of on a daily basis.

You could maybe add our very first: Edmund “Tosspot Toby” Barton who at least had the sense to get out of government and into a High Court sinecure at the earliest opportunity until his passing away in 1920.

DAVID ALLEN: If you were picking the 30 smartest people in Parliament, not one of them would be LNP. Turnbull wouldn’t even get in the top 100.

And now Turnbull is getting into a public fight with Rudd (but won’t deny the central allegation he gave Rudd encouragement for SGUN). What a moron. Just shut up Malcolm and get off the political stage. Your time is up.

Rudd was angling for this role from a long time back. If Malcolm Turnbull had not the wit nor the device to manage what was an inevitable train smash if left to run the course, then his time as PM is very limited. Morrison and others have been talking up the extent of Turnbull’s opposition to Rudd for that UN role, and they have been establishing that that an implacably opposed Malcolm was on display some time before the cabinet meeting. This of course wounds Turnbull, for Turnbull in May had nonetheless put it to Rudd to sort out the process for getting (successfully) nominated.

If Turnbull had put it to the theo-neo-cons to stump up a couple of worthy characters for the role (i.e. instead of Rudd), they could have had a true contest in which the candidates were selected on merit. If the theo-neo-cons couldn’t find a suitable alternative, then that would be their fault if Rudd remained the best choice, and Turnbull could have supported Rudd’s nomination by arguing it was more important than ever for Australia to take a hand in the UN and to fill such roles if possible. If he’d done that, there would have remained the likelihood that Rudd would have failed in the international contest for the UN role of secretary-general, yet if he won it would also look good for Australia.

Leaving the whole issue as a live one for so many months, and then getting entrapped by the theo-neo-con rump both in cabinet and during the aftermath, well that wasn’t a smart play. Abbottian leadership lives on, to our enduring dismay.

Just as well Rudd was dumped from that nomination. He would have lost to Helen Clark for sure, and then would have had to have spent the next 10 years backgrounding the international press, and sneaking around trying to get the numbers for a challenge in the general assembly.

Also that video of him messing up Chinese and yelling about how awful it is would probably have not gone down well with certain influential international delegates …

Climate science, CSIRO and Minister Hunt. According to an article in the smh of today, Minister Hunt has ordered CSIRO to ‘do a U-turn’ on climate science (ie reverse the previous decision to scale down climate research) and he announced additional funding.